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Archive → January, 2018

That there is a war on boys and manhood is obvious. It is not even a question, as the perpetrators are now open about it at every level of society.

Fake academics call manliness “toxic masculinity,” as if 100,000 years of being a man – tough, focused, unwilling to back down on important issues, willing to fight, serve, feed one’s family, be patriotic, to be a warrior, a hunter – somehow became a problem.

Fake educators disproportionately punish boys who engage in boyhood behavior, which often is prep for being a hunter or warrior. It’s like punishing naturally unruly lion cubs or bear cubs for tussling and play fighting. A docile little girl standard is the behavior being pushed on boys.

Only in a spoiled and rotting society where we remain distant from the hard work and sacrifice needed to maintain what we have is it a purported problem, distant from the ground-up preparation and training needed to create young men capable of defending everything that has been built around us.

America’s main enemies have no problem being manly.

The Russians and Chinese may seem odd by our cultural standards, and they may lag behind us in technology, but they are warriors, nonetheless. They maintain a tough attitude. People there who decry their “toxic masculinity” probably ‘disappear’ or are openly assassinated on the streets, much like the few real journalists there, too.

For most nations, the idea that some of your own citizens would be making war on boys and men, and on their ability to defend the homeland, is beyond treason. It is sedition, an act of war from within, the worst act possible, because it puts everyone else at risk.

So my son enjoys being in the Boy Scouts of America, and he has a rifle hung on hooks above his bed, as well as deer antlers on the wall. He is happily shaped by the images, symbols, and work demonstrating a progression from boyhood to manhood. These things symbolize self-reliance, responsibility, self control, increasing duties to others and increasing one’s ability to deliver to others.

These are the qualities that shaped America, and they are the antidote to the girly-man weakness being pushed on our boys today.

The BSA is still one institution where boys can still learn these traits, values and skills, the military being another, and sports and even hunting camp yet others. But you won’t see a poster like this from the BSA today, and that is why it hangs on my son’s wall. It was a birthday present from his parents. We want him to imbibe its symbolism, with which it is filled.

In so many ways the Game Commission is on an exciting path, really moving forward on policy, staff culture, and scientific wildlife management. It is an exciting time to be a hunter and trapper in the great state of Pennsylvania, thanks to you. Hunting and trapping are supposed to be fun, and the PGC should be able to maximize opportunities without sacrificing the natural resource base. If anything, the agency has been perhaps too conservative, too cautious. In that vein, here are some small suggestions for improving hunting and trapping in Pennsylvania:

a) Make all small game seasons concurrent, start them in late September or early October and run them unbroken until mid February. The current on-again-off-again schedule is silly, an artifact from many decades ago. Our current small game hunting schedule leaves kids and oldsters alike out in the cold with nothing to hunt if they can’t get to deer camp, or if they do kill a deer and want to keep on hunting. Hunters deserve maximum opportunities that do not degrade or put wildlife populations at risk, and adding a few extra days won’t hurt anything, but they will help hunters tremendously. Put another way, the risk of changing this is very low to non–existent, and the benefits are huge. Well, what is the risk, really?

b) Allow the use of snares in rural WMUsand/or on private lands. Cable restraints are an important trapping tool under any circumstances, and especially so as we experience ever-increasing freeze-thaw-freeze-thaw winters, with rain no less. These weird winter conditions render traditional footholds nearly useless both early and late in the season. Cable restraints can function better than footholds under those conditions, but they just are not sufficient for the big coyotes we are encountering. Getting coyotes into cable restraints is tough enough, and holding them there is even tougher. Chew-throughs of our cables are common, where a snare would positively catch the coyote and hold it, bringing it to hand and into the bag. In rural areas (or on private land) there is a far lower expectation or risk of a pet or feral dog or cat being caught. We are ceding too much to the anti-trappers by prohibiting snares where they can do the best good. A pet is an animal that lives in a home. Eliminating a very useful tool because of some vague or low-probability worry is not good policy. We can do better, and snares are much better than cable restraints in general, and particularly in the northern Big Woods areas. Also, CR certification can only be done right in person, through hands-on training. This online certification is going to lead to problems, especially where CRs are used like snares.

c) Allow the use of body-grip (Conibear) traps outside water courses, specifically on running-pole sets for fishers, bobcats, and raccoons. Like the snare situation above, our trapping regulations are unrealistic, they are too conservative, penalizing law-abiding trappers because of vague fears that under reasonable circumstances will not happen. Securing body-grip traps up off the ground is well out of the reach of dogs and domestic cats. Separately, if a pet owner lets their animal out the door to run free, where it can trespass, be hit by a car, be eaten by a coyote or fox or hawk, or get hurt in a fight with another animal, then they do not truly care about it and it is not a real “pet.” Pennsylvania trappers do not deserve to be hurt because of others’ irresponsible behavior. Elsewhere in America, the use of bodygrips on running pole sets is very effective and humane. We can stick with the #160 size as the maximum.

d) Extend the fisher trapping season and areas. Trappers in Berks and Lebanon Counties have told me of catching fishers in their sets, and we are seeing them in Dauphin County. There is no good reason why we cannot extend where and when we trap these abundant predators. Incidentally, they eat bobcats and turkeys, and it would be silly to expect fishers to simply harmoniously co-exist with other animals. They are a voracious predator and they will have a disproportionate impact on predator and prey populations alike if allowed to expand unchecked. Fishers are cool animals and I am all for having them in our ecosystems. What is lacking now are the mountain lions and wolves that in the distant past would have eaten them, and kept them in balance with other wildlife. We humans now fulfill the role of lions and wolves. Let us at ’em.

e) Make sure bobcat populations can sustain these long trapping and hunting seasons. We are seeing a lot less bobcat sign and fewer bobcats on our trail cameras. This was the first year we did not get a bobcat through either trapping or calling in 2G and 4C, and while this may be just our observation, we are concerned. If bobcat harvests must be reduced, then we prefer that it come out of their hunting season. There is a ton of hunting opportunities in Pennsylvania, and not a lot of great trapping opportunities. Heck, muskrats are practically extinct, coyotes have eaten most of the red fox in the southcentral, and possums are clogging nearly every trap. Let us keep our bobcat trapping intact.

f) Reinstate concurrent buck and doe deer hunting. We are seeing a high number of deer nearly every place we hunt (WMUs 2G, 4C, 3A, 5C, 5D). Deer populations are definitely lower than in 2001, and deer are harder to hunt now than then, but the quality is unbelievable, and the herd can sustain both doe and buck hunting. Pennsylvania is now a real trophy destination, so keep up the scientific management, which would include allowing hunting on Christmas Day.

g) Expand the bear season by one day in WMUs 2G and 4C, or rearrange the season entirely. There are an awful lot of bears everywhere, especially in 2G and 4C. On the Friday before bear season starts, we see loads of bears having tea and crumpets in the back yard. They are watching football and hanging out leisurely in reclining chairs. Come Opening Day through Wednesday, we might see the hind end of a bear or two, or we might occasionally harvest a bear, if we work hard enough. By deer season opening day the following week, the bears are back to having tea and crumpets in the back yard, hardly disturbed by all our hunting efforts. Another way to address this is to make bear and deer seasons concurrent, at least for one week, and perhaps start that concurrent season the week of Thanksgiving.

h) Do more to end wildlife feeding. We continue to see mangy bears, and deer baiting under the guise of “helping” wildlife through artificial feeding. It’s not good for the animals, and can actually be bad. People also feed wildlife to entice game animals away from (other) hunters. This is a cultural practice that PGC needs to do more to end, through education and enforcing the bear feeding regulation.

Thank you for considering our comments. We do love the PGC and admire your field staff, especially.

Time for a quick Thank You to two great outdoor products firms, Filson and Leupold.

Filson has been around since the 1890s Alaskan Gold Rush, providing rugged clothing to rugged men and women.

They use the best virgin wools, waxed cotton and canvas, brass fittings, bridle leather…this is super quality clothing that will never, ever wear out. Virgin wool is the washed wool right off the sheep, with super long fibers that hold warmth like a sheep would want, and it also wears like iron.

I have had the pleasure of owning many Filson sweaters, vests, socks, jackets, and canvas coats. They are made in America and of unsurpassed quality, especially in contrast to today’s mass produced Chinese junk.

Yes, they are more expensive than most clothing, but as soon as you wear them, you will agree they are worth every cent. Ten years later, when your garment has begun to show a bit of wear, you will be utterly amazed. In a world of built-in obsolescence, Filson’s is throwback, old-timey bomb-proof.

Just yesterday morning I was retrieving a live coyote I had trapped on a grapple (a drag that gets caught in brush). He had managed to go through a massive wall of brush made of multiflora rose, Japanese honeysuckle, Russian olive, Asian bittersweet vines, raspberry brambles, and other assorted sharp, pointy, and painful trash brush that is impossible for humans to get through.

At first I used a chainsaw to cut my way in close to the growling, barking, gnawing alpha male. Then, I went back to the truck and put on an old Filson “Tin Cloth” hunting jacket, turned my back to the brush, and began bulldozing my way backwards through it. The various sharp things just bounced off the coat and in seconds I was standing in front of the nest raider (I trap predators to save ground nesting birds and for no other purpose).

There isn’t a Carhartt or Dickey’s anywhere that can do that, nor a Barbour, either. The downside to Tin Cloth is that when it goes on cold, you feel like a medieval knight putting on his steel armor. It is pretty stiff. But as you move and it warms up from your body heat, it flexes easily, and is indestructible. The way around this is to put it near a stove, heating vent, or in a warm vehicle before putting in on.

Anyhow, Thank You to Filson’s for their incredible garments. Nothing else comes close.

Leupold has made scopes and binoculars in Washington State since the early 1900s, and to most hunters their scopes are a household name.

What is amazing about their firm is not just the high quality products, but the incredible customer service.

To wit, this past November I fell while bear hunting in Northcentral Pennsylvania. Falling flat on my face in the thick mountain laurel, my chest crashed into a bunch of laurel trunks. They stick up like pungi sticks. A pair of Leupold Mojave binoculars was harnessed to my chest, and they took the brunt of the fall.

The diopter setting control popped off, and although I was able to find it and more or less get it back on, it did not work.

So I sent it to Leupold and asked them to fix it.

Instead, Leupold sent me a brand new pair of their latest model, the Pro Guide HD. Shrink-wrapped in the box and all.

This new binocular is really just the culmination of a series of slight improvements and modifications to the now discontinued Cascades, Mojaves, and other mountain-name-themed models I cannot recall now. But think about that, a company takes something you broke and gives you a new one.

Buddy, THAT is customer service!

Yesterday while flintlock hunting in the afternoon at French Creek State Park with my friend George, we met another hunter who joined us. We ended up doing three-man deer drives through the western end of the park. This new fellow, Gary Yoder, had around his neck a nice pair of Leupold binoculars.

When I told him my story about the brand new Leupolds on my chest harness, he told me the same story! He, too, had broken his previous pair, sent them in for repair, and instead had received this upgraded new pair, new in the box.

Needless to say, we were both very impressed by Leupold’s dedication to their customers.

A note about the new Pro Guide HD 8x42s: These have high quality glass, excellent, really. Looking through Swarovski, Zeiss, Leica, I do not see much of an improvement over this Leupold glass. When you look at the price difference, there is no comparison at all, because the German glass is two to four times the price of the Leupold and only slightly, marginally better in terms of clarity and crispness.

As good as the clarity is, all Leupold binoculars come with the worst and strangest eyepiece covers of all binoculars. While hunting in Scotland last October, I did a belly crawl up a hill to take a shot at a distant red stag. On my chest harness was that prior pair of Leupold binoculars. Behind me lay a trail of Leupold eyepiece covers, all of which came off and lay in different places in the bog. There has to be a way for Leupold to improve this one odd, inconsistent anomaly. Otherwise, their products are quite perfect and their customer service is even better than that.

Are you confused, like me, that America has a political party wholly dedicated to importing and caring for illegal trespassers here in America, going so far as to shove aside our actual citizens?

America’s representative government is supposed to be OF the People, BY the People, FOR the People. The People being those citizens, taxpayers, and voters who were either born here or who moved here legally. The people America is made for, built by.

What kind of unsustainable, giant free lunch smorgasbord mentality does it take to demand that those who have labored to create and maintain this nation must also then absorb and care for millions of illegal trespassers, invaders, really, who demand much but give little? And then allow them to vote themselves more of our Social Security and tax money?

While looking through my history books I am unable to find anything like this in the annals of the world. It is kind of surprising, because written history is full of amazing events, almost unbelievable.

One somewhat possible comparison is the later Roman Empire, where certain regional ethnic tribes were absorbed specifically to function as mercenary warriors on behalf of Rome. That tribe sacked Rome twice, the first time seeking back pay, the second time for good, thereby ending the empire proper, and leaving distant Constantinople as the de facto seat.

Another possible example are the Hittites, who moved into Egypt, also possibly as a mercenary army, and also eventually usurping the Pharoah’s throne.

I think most Americans agree that we do not want our nation or civilization to end at all, much less in our lifetime by illegal invaders, no matter what purportedly good reasons they are here for.

So what on earth is happening that one American political party is so utterly dedicated to changing America through this unbridled invasion, riven with ethnic and cultural differences?

Why is this happening? What does this political party have in mind for America after these new people get voting rights?

Have they considered at all the sustainability aspect? Or does that not matter, and power must be pursued at any cost?

One thing is for sure, the same backwards unsustainable thinking that liberals accuse conservatives of when it comes to natural resource management surely applies here.

There is only so much a culture or tax coffer can sustain before it breaks.

We are reminded of 1960s protest music…

“And when you ask em ‘How much should we give’, they only answer more, more more” — Credence Clearwater Revival, Fortunate Son.

Or we are reminded of more poignant war music “Glory, glory Halleluya, his truth goes marching on…” as row after row of glinting bayonets in formation moved to nearby battlefields, to maintain the Union.

Over the years I have been asked why I am so involved in politics, particularly as an unpaid activist representing my own sense of justice and fairness (as opposed to them being determined or set by corporate or union interests).

More recently, like yesterday, the opening salvo of a campaign to find and elect a primary candidate against incumbent state senator Jake Corman has prompted some citizens to ask me why. And not always so nicely.

That’s OK, because it is rewarding to see any American give a damn about politics, even if their favored elected official is a self-serving creep like Corman.

Folks, it is real simple. I am an activist so that you can enjoy your liberty and freedom, because that is what I believe in. No one pays me to do this. Rather, I take money out of my pockets and spend it so you can make a more educated decision, even if you don’t think you want that information. And believe me, after decades of the Corman clan hoodwinking the good people of central Pennsylvania, a lot of work is needed.

While I am not a member of the Armed Services, I am a member of the American citizenry, where individual political activism is part and parcel of our cultural fabric.

For me, political activism is a love of liberty, inspired by the freedom and promise of America. I feel inspired when I think of these things, and I am willing to fight for them, for you. Even if you don’t agree with my specific views.

Think about it: Most of the people on this planet live under tyranny, with no freedom, no choice, no opportunity, no liberty to express themselves or seek redress for bad political choices. China alone has over a billion serfs. Russia has several hundred million disenfranchised citizens, who are daily watching what vestiges of democracy they had cobbled together crumble.

What we have in America is rare, but here in America we also have so much material wealth and tranquility that our success is now putting people to sleep. People take everything we have for granted, forgetting the incredible amount of work and sacrifice it took to build this nation up to where it is.

We cannot take America for granted. America is not on autopilot, though to a lot of people it sure looks that way. Too much is at stake to have this attitude.

The hard fact is, you simply cannot outsource or delegate your role as a free citizen. No one else cares as much about your freedom and liberty as you care, and no one else will advocate for you as much as you yourself can, or will.

Another way of saying it is that democracy is where you get the form of government you deserve or have earned.

If you the citizen do not stay involved in civics, politics, and voting, then we will all lose what we have. Corporate interests, union interests, corrupt political interests, control freaks will all happily take over running the country for you, dividing it up amongst themselves, and increasingly edge you out of the picture while using you for your tax money.

Examples include Obama’s trillion-dollar Porkulus bill that enriched his allied interest groups; or Solyndra, the fake solar energy company to which Obama gave nearly $500 million of taxpayer money, your money. And then there is the Clinton Foundation, whose principals used government access and influence to generate kickbacks construed as charitable donations. In the Bush II administration, US VP Cheney helped steer a $400 million no–bid contract to his former employer Halliburton to help clean up Iraq.

As an ongoing enterprise, America takes constant vigilance by its beneficiaries – you, the citizen.

In 1787, at the end of the First Constitutional Convention held at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Benjamin Franklin stepped out from behind the closed doors into the throng of citizens waiting outside.

There, on the same cobblestone streets so many of us are familiar with today, a Mrs. Powel asked him “Doctor Franklin, what was decided, shall we have a monarchy, or a republic?”

To which our good doctor Benjamin Franklin quickly responded “A republic, if you can keep it.”

And that is why I am an activist, because it takes constant citizen activism to keep our republic. It is what our great nation is built on.

Pennsylvania’s 11th congressional district stretches from well southeast of the southcentral PA capital city of Harrisburg to the farthest reaches of northeastern PA, near the New York border. It is one of those crazily gerrymandered districts created to protect a certain congressman, a certain party. You have to try really hard to create a political district this convoluted, and it is as twisted as the power-hungry thinking that went into it.

I know, because according to the PA Supreme Court, I was the primary victim of the gerrymandering that created the 2012 Pennsylvania state political district map, released at the same time as the congressional map.

Apparently my then-candidacy (as an independent-minded conservative) for the 15th state senate district was a threat to the political establishment (self-serving careerists surrounded by a constellation of special interest groups feasting upon the taxpayer host body), and so they placed my Harrisburg home in a tiny political pocket. Our home was barely in one congressional district that is mostly based in Adams County to the south (Gettysburg). It was just one small part of Dauphin County mixed in with much larger portions of other counties, and we were also suddenly a couple blocks away from the 15th state senate district.

The gerrymandering was announced just as our 2012 campaign got under way.

The PA state Supreme Court threw out the state district map, calling the area around our home “an iron cross…” designed to exclude someonefrom participating in the political process. But the court kept the congressional map, which is being challenged now.

So that is where we got these crazy district lines, and it is how we now have a four-way contest to replace outgoing Congressman Lou Barletta.

Candidates who have officially announced are Joe Peters, Andrew Lewis, Steve Bloom, and Dan Meuser. Their home bases stretch from the farthest reaches of southcentral to far northeastern PA.

I know all of these guys, and I would like to share some thoughts with you about their candidacy.

Joe has the most impressive resume of any of the candidates here. He has been a successful professional crimefighter, and a wonderful political outsider. Joe is the stuff of legend, a tough cop surrounded by bad guys, but always doing the right thing.

A former cop and prosecutor who put away really bad men in jail, Joe took real risks, and earned real enemies. He has been tested many times over many decades, and has proven uncorruptible.

So naturally, Joe has earned the enmity and fear of politically powerful shadows now supporting the other candidate from his region, Dan Meuser.

We would be lucky to have Joe Peters in Congress, though I fear he lacks the funds to get his message and impressive personality out to the voters. When he ran for PA Attorney General a few years ago, I gladly, even eagerly voted for him. Really impressive guy. Total underdog.

Then we have Andrew Lewis.

After more or less forcing me out of the last primary race for the 15th state senate district (2016), by undercutting my base of support in Perry County, Andrew nonetheless earned my endorsement in his subsequent man-to-man primary run against John DiSanto, our current state senator, who thankfully went on to defeat incumbent Rob Teplitz (a Marxist who was outstanding at constituent services).

What I liked about Andrew then is probably his biggest weakness now, and that is his youth.

Andrew must be the most energetic candidate to ever run for any office. He is physically tough, tall, good looking, earnest, religious, conservative, and a combat veteran of the US Army operations in Iraq. And boy is he positive. This kid has the best demeanor and personality you are likely to meet in your lifetime. He is from a rural farming background, salt of the earth family, smart as hell, and highly educated. He has an impressive resume by any standard, and especially for someone so young.

People asked me in 2016 why I endorsed the guy who stole my dream of serving in the state senate. My answer was that Andrew was a really impressive young man, the kind of person America needs in politics and in leadership roles. I stand by that now, and if for some reason you can’t vote for Joe Peters, Andrew Lewis is your man. You cannot go wrong voting for Andrew, who has probably the best geographic reach (political base, or likely voters) of all the candidates.

Then we have Steve Bloom, a sitting state representative from Cumberland County.

There is nothing negative anyone anywhere can say about Steve Bloom. And there is a long, long list of very positive things about him.

And that is the problem here.

Steve, why are you in this congressional race? You are needed in the PA State House of Representatives, where you already serve with great distinction! You are WAY too good to lose from the state house.

Steve has worked hard and smart in the state house. He has amazingly, surprisingly worked his way up into junior leadership. He is on the cusp of breaking into actual leadership, which is amazing because he is a straight-talking, no BS conservative. Steve is not a weasel, he is a force for good…in the PA State House. The fact that he is moving up is cause for celebration.

Steve is very conservative, religious, and as pure as the driven snow. Steve is exactly what we need in politics, and in fact he already IS in politics. Now that he is in the state house, it would be nice to keep him there. If you vote for Steve Bloom in the upcoming primary, no one can fault you. But the fear is that Steve’s southcentral PA base is too small for him to leverage into winning this congressional seat, and that voting for him will divide up the vote, resulting in the worst possible outcome in this race…

Dan Meuser.

If you have something positive to say about Dan Meuser, would you please contact me directly?

Honestly, if you have something truthfully good to say about him, I will publish it here, unfiltered. No lie.

Dan is from the same northeastern coal country that Joe Peters is from, and he has played the strangest role in politics for a long time.

Dan has the distinction of having blown the hugest wad of cash on a losing primary race of anyone in living history. About ten years ago he ran against Chris Hackett, a religious hillbilly who no one had ever heard of.

And Dan lost.

He didn’t just lose, he lost spectacularly, hugely, phenomenally. Dan spent literally millions of dollars on a primary race, and lost to a guy who spent, what, a hundred thousand dollars? Maybe a bit more? [UPDATE May 1, 2018: Proving that memory can be a fragile thing, campaign finance records that I looked at today show that Hackett spent well over $100,000 on his campaign against Dan Meuser. It is hard to tell exactly how much both candidates spent, but Meuser’s campaign was over a million bucks, and Hackett’s may have been right behind that. What I recalled was Hackett’s excellent grass roots ground game]

What Dan lacked in charisma and character, he made up for with money. He just kept tossing that cash around, trying to buy votes that never materialized. When the dust settled, in a two-person primary race, mind you, Hackett had crushed him with his folksy man-on-the-street candidacy. The empty suits lost to the citizen revolt that became known within a year as the Tea Party.

Dan Meuser eventually served in the Tom Corbett administration as Secretary of Revenue, the Mister Moneybags of PA government.

The Corbett administration was the worst run administration in modern Pennsylvania history.

A tone deaf governor with zero loyalty for those who put him there, and a taste for private flash, Corbett was surrounded by an army of self-directed, self-interested political hacks embodying the very worst of political patronage. God it was a freaking disaster, and it brings me no happiness to write it here.

I worked hard to get Corbett elected, very hard, and I served on the transition team, only to sit back and watch in slack-jawed amazement as the entire enterprise slo-mo crashed and burned after it was in place. Like a bad dream.

How many people went into the governor’s office, pleading for Corbett to take control and right the ship of state…it was like a nightmare, where your hand is on the wheel, and you keep turning it, but your car heads over the cliff.

Anyhow, if you are like me and four years ago you said “thankfully that pain is behind us” about the departing Corbett Administration, well, Dan Meuser is here to revisit that pain upon us, once again, but this time as a congressman.

As Secretary of Revenue in the Corbett administration, Meuser oversaw, masterminded, and approved the largest state government sexual harassment settlement in Pennsylvania history. And it may be the largest state government sexual harassment settlement in the country’s history.

You understand, this is nothing to brag about. This settlement was probably unnecessary and in any event, it was a colossal waste of limited taxpayer money. At a time of tight budgets, this is no way to spend The People’s money. At a time of flush budgets, it is going to be the butt of late night comedy jokes, because it is bad policy but at least humorously so.

And speaking of The People’s money, do you know another fantastically bad public policy idea Meuser implemented from his perch in state government? He put the squeeze on Pennsylvania businesses, like the Mob would do to extract cash from innocent people.

We PA business owners, great and small, all received these ridiculous notices from Meuser’s Dept. of Revenue saying “Prove to us that you don’t owe this tax money below, and while you are mulling that over, pay this bill for what we think, but cannot prove, that you owe to state government.”

Meuser’s assault on PA businesses for fast cash to prop up bloated state government spending was so shocking that whatever bit of good will the Corbett Administration had left, was squeezed out of his remaining voting base. Nearly 100% of these phony tax bills ended up resulting in zero owed, but it was the kind of expensive and anxiety-inducing government red tape we expect from liberals. Not from business people. With people like Meuser in senior positions pulling these kinds of cheap stunts, it was ever harder to see Corbett as a pro-business Republican.

And this is the GOOD stuff about Dan.

Believe me, there is plenty more bad stuff. Like, recall the politically powerful shadows pulling his puppet strings mentioned above. He is the stultified establishment candidate. Good grief, aren’t we so beyond that now? Most Republican voters now know how failed that is, a party inward looking, without direction, barely distinguishable from the Democrats.

Dan Meuser is the last person Pennsylvanians need in office. He is representative of everything bad about politics. You cannot vote for him. You just cannot. That is a terrible choice. My gosh, you have three other good candidates to vote for here, and if you really want one of the good guys to win, you will vote for Joe Peters or Andrew Lewis.

Voting for Dan Meuser is voting for an empty suit with no principles, with a history of proven failure on one of the seminal issues of our time, sexual harassment.

Voting for Steve Bloom is effectively dividing up the good-guy vote and pretty much ensuring that Dan Meuser wins. We need Steve to stay in the PA House of Reps. Stay there, Steve, stay! Not voting for Steve Bloom is actually helping Steve stay right where we need him.

Voting for Joe Peters or Andrew Lewis is what you want if you want an outstanding congressman. You cannot go wrong with either one.

Today is a national holiday honoring and remembering a great American leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Like great leaders across human history, King captured a moment in time, crystalized it, and put a flame in it that later generations of people can touch and be inspired.

Below is the famous I Have a Dream speech that King gave in Washington, DC, probably the last great speech given in that swampy town.

However, before we get teary-eyed and inspired by Dr. King’s honest speech and honest goals, let’s ask a simple question.

Today, the word “racism” and “racist” have become immediate responses for just about anyone who disagrees with liberal ideas. Any ideas, not just the subject of skin color.

This includes debates about the role and place of Islam in a democracy and republic. Islam is not a race, it is a bunch of ideas. Race has nothing to do with it, unless you are looking at the skin color caste system in most Muslim countries, or how Arab slavers started the African slave trade and continue it to this very day. Those things aside, race is not a component of Islam.

And yet proponents of American security, freedom, and Judeo-Christian culture are called racists if they do not accede to demands for unlimited Muslim immigration with zero acculturation and assimilation.

Accusing people of being racist even now takes off from completely unrelated subjects, as in “You said you follow the Bible, and it is not pro-gay. That is almost like racism. In fact, it is just like racism. It is like being racist. You are a racist.”

Don’t laugh, I have seen it happen in person and in writing.

So that “racism” becomes the standard synonym or fill-in for any kind of discrimination or bigotry or even self-selective behavior based on thousands of years of human history, at best. At worst, it becomes an empty accusation that as soon as it is uttered is seen for what it is, fake.

And let’s not even delve into the NAACP, Black Lives Matter, or even the Congressional Black Caucus, where members accuse someone of “racism” if they merely sneeze, and where brutally racist statements are made nearly daily. The NAACP has become one of the most racist organizations in America, and it is enabled by the outrageously bigoted Southern Poverty Law Center. Which is funded and run by white liberals. Ditto for BLM.

When one of these groups says “You are a racist until we say you are not,” it is meaningless, because they have misused, abused, and failed on this claim for decades. By making it partisan, where racists in one party are excused because they are from “the correct” political party, and members of the other political party are always shamed and accused and never excused, these self-appointed arbiters of right and wrong are exposed as hypocrites. Their credibility plummets as a result.

If you are having trouble following this, try this: What results from the misuse of accusations of racism is a watering down of the word and idea.

If racism becomes subjective, and not quantifiable, then those wrongly accused of being racist will burn out and lose their yearning for fairness. After all, they themselves are being treated unfairly, accused unfairly.

Hijacking the word can only boomerang back. People stop listening. Oh, they care, but they no longer ascribe credibility to the NAACP, BLM, SPLC, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and the other fakers who have long overreached and overplayed that hand.

Yes, it is true that there are many things worse than racism, but if we are going to value a racism-free America (a good thing), then we must reserve that word and its connotations for when it really applies. We must not misappropriate it, nor may we engage in racist behavior and then accuse the subjects of our abuse themselves of being “racist.” Especially when there are simply legitimate disagreements on policy and law.

“Racist!” cannot be a crutch. That will only undermine everything MLK fought for, and what he got the vast number of Americans to buy into: The idea that we are all meant to be free, we are all meant to be equal, we all deserve to have equal opportunity and no artificial barriers between us and our dreams and goals. An America devoid of discrimination is an America full of its greatest promise.

So what would MLK say about today’s misuse and watering down of the white-hot word that used to galvanize tens of millions of Americans to do the right thing?

What would MLK say about how the Left has turned nearly every American institution into a force of discrimination and persecution against those with whom the Left merely disagrees, politically?

What would MLK say about the fake accusations of ‘racism’ to cover up the internecine mass murders among young black men occurring daily in nearly every single American city… That is done to obscure and excuse the utter and complete failure of nearly all of America’s black leadership, so that fifty-four years later, the American black community is in some ways in much worse condition than when Dr. King had his dream?

Recently released emails and texts between FBI agents and Department of Justice officials in the immediately past administration demonstrate that both institutions were completely politicized. Using their official crime-fighting jobs for gaining political power and blocking the will of the American People is the most corrupt thing possible.

A political party wrote fake accusations against a competing US presidential candidate, and those accusations were then used to acquire a search warrant to spy on his political campaign and on the people in it by the sitting administration, which supported the other US presidential candidate.

So we have a presidential administration using official American employees to pursue that administration’s political goals. That’s awful, and illegal.

But it gets worse.

Then the fake accusations and the fake search warrant were used to justify a special investigation into the new president. Making it worse, the special investigator hired dozens of lawyers who were openly partisan and officially associated with the opposing political party. Meaning they are not objective and operating at arm’s length, pursuing justice. They are already political activists.

Making it worse-worse, the FBI agents and DOJ staff in charge of ensuring American law is not broken reveal themselves to be using their professional jobs for purely political purposes here, previously and DURING THE INVESTIGATION ITSELF. They are openly partisan and basing their official actions on their personal values and political loyalties. That’s awful, and illegal, and criminal.

But it gets worse.

Then the special investigator began investigating everyone associated with the president, as well as the president, for everything they had ever done in their lives, going back decades. None of this investigating has anything to do with the original search warrant. This is called a ‘fishing expedition’, and it violates the most basic premise of American justice and law. This is awful, and illegal.

But it gets worse.

Then the special investigator began to entrap the subjects of his investigations, not on the original grounds of the investigation, but on the subjective and vague accusation that the people were trying to hinder his investigation. Not that they had actually committed crimes, but that they were trying to block or obstruct the investigation into whether or not they had actually committed the crimes on which the search warrant was originally issued.

This is called a ‘process crime’.

It is usually a flimsy charge, easily disputed, and is usually associated with getting criminals to more easily own up to their actual crimes for which they were originally targeted.

But in this investigation, it is the ONLY purported “crime” with which anyone is being investigated or charged. So it’s not that anyone being investigated here actually broke a law, but they are being charged with trying to avoid being charged with no proof that they actually did anything they would be charged with in the first place.

This is awful and a violation of everything that America stands for. Not to mention our Constitution.

So we have a political witch hunt, based on paid political activity by the opposing political party, illegally enabled by a sitting president and his staff, illegally implemented by the supposedly professional, non-political bureaucrats who work for the American people to ensure that American law is followed and that real criminals go to jail.

And it turns out the biggest criminals involved are the previous administration, the special investigator, and the FBI agents and DOJ staff who made this whole investigation happen in the first place.

The 1972 Watergate scandal is used as the basis for judging all political scandals, because it was considered so outlandish and unacceptable that it brought down the sitting president, Richard Nixon.

Well, by Watergate standards, this “Russia collusion” investigation by Mueller into Trump is the biggest political scandal ever in American history. It is so big, and so terrible that it has no parallel. It is so evil, and so illegal, that it is impossible to describe as anything other than earth-shaking. The number of FBI agents, DOJ staff, and special investigators (especially Robert Mueller, who knew all along that his investigation was founded on and actually run by corrupt FBI agents) who should be under indictment right now numbers in the dozens.

When the foundation of American justice, the FBI and the DOJ, are so deeply corrupted and used as political weapons to protect political power by one political party, then we have a serious crisis. An enormous crisis.

Were there to be any legal decisions or criminal charges to emanate from this corrupt investigation, our entire rule of law will be called into question. It would mean that whoever controls the official institutions of American crime control and justice will control the entire legal process, and they can do what third-world dictatorships do: Simply accuse their political opponents of vague crimes, charge them, process them through phony kangaroo courts, and lock them up or execute them.

With so many federal judges already amassing political power unto themselves, with the American media protecting them and the previous administration, America is much closer to a serious political crisis than people understand. How this Mueller investigation plays out is anyone’s guess, but we have one political party absolutely going for broke to protect their political power by bringing down a properly elected president they oppose.

And on the other hand, we have a supposedly opposing political party that, with a few exceptions, is mostly silent about the attempted coup d’etat now under way.

Let us ask this question: What if the current president decided to do what was being done to him? Let’s say the current president decides to use the FBI and DOJ to criminalize and prosecute his political enemies. People who have done nothing more than oppose him politically are suddenly either criminal suspects or are actually charged with crimes.

If there is one place in our lives where integrity matters most, it is with healthcare and the medical professionals and caregivers who provide it. Our personal health is everything to us. Without good health, we decline and become disabled, or die.

Healthcare professionals who monkey around with your health are at best incompetent. Like basing their opinions on hearsay. Those who play with people’s health for personal reasons, like philosophical views held by either the caregiver or the patient, are evil. They either cannot or will not rise above their own limited personal views, and instead use whatever authority they possess to inflict damage on someone they disagree with.

Such is the case of “Doctor” Bandy X. Lee, a purported professor at Yale University.

A review of her credentials reveals just how low medical standards have become, because the subjects she studies and supposedly specializes in are the most abstract, subjective things. She does not actually treat anyone for an infection, or for an injury. Instead, Lee specializes in creating new categories of fake injuries resulting from an otherwise healthy society.

By their nature her subjects of study defy critical thinking, and instead rely upon political positions, or at best philosophical views. Such as “violence prevention.”

Maybe it is no surprise that Lee defines violence and violent behavior in a way that indemnifies truly violent dictators like North Korea’s dictator Kim Kong Dong, or whatever his name is, and which ascribes negative values to people engaging in self-defense. Especially with firearms. Especially in America.

Or, people like President Trump, whose mere discussion of defending America is characterized by Lee as “violence” and “violent behavior.”

Parasite Lee is in an American policy world infested with hordes of anti-America academics, trained to couch every area of study and specialization in a way that undermines American security, culture and law, and which elevates our avowed enemies. Their political enemies are always Republicans, conservatives, and now “white males.”

Lee also declared that the fate of the world hangs on Trump’s forcible removal from office, and that he represents a dire threat to humanity. Yes, she asserts, Trump is going to get all humanity blown up in a nuclear war, because he likes war, he likes weapons, and he acts tough. Yes, she says, it will be Trump’s fault when the world is blown up. Nope, not North Korea’s fault, or China’s fault, but the guy trying to defend America from North Korea. Yup, huge crisis if trump stays in office, she says.

Lee is not completely alone. She shares this distinctive role with a whole mess o’ other so-called mental health professionals, who, like Lee, are also complete frauds. These are all political activists masquerading as medical professionals, who inject their political views into what is supposed to be sacred medical work. They are doctors like Doctor Jekyll was a doctor, like Auschwitz death camp Doctor Mengele was a doctor. That is, fake, fake, fake doctors.

The biggest problem here is that none of these people, including Lee, have actually examined Trump in person. They make wild, subjective suppositions about him, ascribe wild, subjective motives to his decisions, and apply their own subjective personal views and values, as if THEY are what is normal behavior. But none of them have actually talked to the guy, which is what their professional standards require.

Lee and her cohort of political activists are not actual medical professionals. That is measured by their substitution of personal views for professional standards, a clear violation of everything being a doctor is about. She and her fellow psychiatric screwballs have violated medical standards, state, and federal law by passing medical judgment on a purported patient without actually examining them.

Aside from obvious frauds, these people are a bunch of wimps, too. They are not fighters, defenders of the nation, or even healthcare providers or caregivers. They will quickly lock up as “crazy” anyone who disagrees with their leftist political views. By the way, this is what dictatorships everywhere do. They characterize their political opponents as “unsteady,” a “threat” to people around them, and then forcibly lock them up and at best keep them heavily sedated. One has to wonder who Lee has done this to already…let us guess, are there patriotic Americans among her victims?

I would not want Lee or any of her fellow medical frauds in my life, or in your life, in any way. These people are liabilities to America and to their local communities. Their “standards” are so screwy, so low, that they are hurting the people around them, not helping them. Maybe that is their purpose.

The use of one’s medical training to be a partisan political whore, or a traitor, is grounds for losing one’s professional credentials, and that is what must occur next: Strip Lee and her fellow medically trained prostitutes of their medical licenses. These aren’t serious medical professionals, and the medical field will not miss them.

The case of Bandy X. Lee’s medical malpractice is a also view into the world of leftwing political activism. Literally everything there is politicized; there are no boundaries that cannot be crossed to achieve political domination, including the illegal mis-use of one’s medical credentials. The ends always justify the means to liberals. It’s always some world-ending crisis that justifies destroying their political opponents.

Which reminds us of the newly renamed global warming, no, wait, climate change, no, wait, now it is “climate crisis”: A bunch of so-called professors use tenure to promote bizarre and indefensible claims totally contrary to actual science, but it is such a “crisis” that everything must stop, change, and turn hard left, or else…the world ends.

One takeaway message from all this is that our colleges have become cesspools of anti-American activism, but paid for by hard working Americans. Yale University now produces the stupidest, least trained people, most incapable of critical thinking. Ivy League? Oh pshaw! It’s the Political Correctness League, where being close-minded is the standard. And the Americans who believe the ideas and assertions emanating from places like Yale and Lee…I mean, we are constantly told by the media that Trump’s supporters are a bunch of idiots, but look at the low standards liberals have. They will believe anything!

There is a crisis, all right, a crisis in credibility. The more outlandish the claims, the bigger the credibility crisis.

The bigger takeaway message here is that America is under assault from within, by people who use their professional roles to damage and undermine America’s security and the health of her citizens. Whatever the better alternative to America is, is never stated by these people. Their message is simply that America as it is, is bad, and it must radically change. Perhaps they think communist China is better?

Maybe Ms. Lee needs to go there, to China, and promote her ideology. Surely she will be warmly welcomed.

Perhaps they were the ones who sent her to America in the first place.

UPDATE: January 12, 2018, it turns out “Doctor” Bandy X. Lee has no medical license. She held a medical license in California, which lapsed in 2013. She holds no medical license in Connecticut, where she now resides and “practices” medicine. Performing the duties of a medical doctor without a license is a criminal act. In the past few days Lee was reprimanded by the American Psychiatric Association, because she issued a medical opinion about a person without having examined that person, and made it public without that person’s consent. As we suspected, Bandy X. Lee is not really a doctor, she is a highly trained political activist with the trappings of a doctor. Zero credibility, Bandy X. Lee, zero credibility.

It usually gets mentioned when a US president designates a new wilderness area, or adds existing federal land to an existing wilderness area. The acreage involved in those events is so large, usually so vast, that it must be newsworthy. It just has to be news. It is impossible to ignore it.

This makes the “very good” news.

Another way to get wilderness into the news is to raise the subject of natural resource management in a remote area that is not declared or designated wilderness, but which has a wild and untouched character. These reports are usually cast as a loss of innocence, a loss of wildness, a loss of something special.

This makes the “very bad” news.

Wilderness as a news topic usually involves one extreme or the other: Very good, or very bad.

The truth is that wilderness, those huge untouched areas with nothing but healthy flowing watersheds, breathing forests, and nearly unlimited wildlife habitat, are of mere flesh and blood. Wilderness gets such short shrift and limited coverage in the news media, because so few people know what it is. It is mythologized for better and worse. That it is nearly 100% public land can complicate things, politically, but the fact is, you will not find wilderness in any other state of being in a developed nation.

Most Americans do not have any real exposure to actual wilderness. Their hands-on exposure to it is either zero or merely driving through or around some wilderness area or region (like northern Maine), and admiring it from a car or picnic area. Few immerse themselves in it.

For me and for many people like me, wilderness is like oxygen. We just have to have it. We must have it coursing through our bodies, supporting our feet as we stand or hike or explore. There is nothing mystical about this experience. No transformative or spiritual worshipfulness. No beams of sunlight directed downward by heavenly forces. It is a purely physical connection that in the context of modern sedentary lifestyles becomes such a stark contrast and unusual experience.

Oh sure, we see the hand of God in Nature. Goes without saying. How can you not see Him there? The genius of life on Planet Earth is beyond magical, beyond scientific.

That I get an endorphine rush from every moment I am out in wilderness is an indication of my own “nature deficit disorder,” a topic worthy of a full discussion some other time and something most assuredly suffered by the vast number of Americans.

Why people do drugs of any sort is beyond me, because I can get a safe and natural high from watching a tree sway in a breeze, or a snowy hilltop dressed in silent snow, or a tiny junco flitting among the snowy branches of a small spruce tree. So much of what we call wilderness is really just the same things going on in your own back yard, except that actual wilderness has much less of some of that animal activity, and a lot more silence and serenity. In designated or de facto wilderness, we do see the more rare and cool “charismatic” animals, like moose, panthers, fishers, bobcats, marten.

As an experience, for wilderness lovers like me, wilderness excursion or immersion is just like eating, or breathing. Its quiet is a quantifiable value, like a gallon of gasoline has a price we pay to keep our vehicles going. People like me simply gotta have that wilderness experience to keep running. In modern American terms, it is like having a really big house. We feel like we belong and must be there, comfy and snug.

One of the challenges with wilderness designation is that most of it happens out West, where there are already hundreds of millions of acres of nationally-managed public lands. Already out there are big wilderness areas that a person could spend an entire summer exploring just one location.

Back East we have hardly anything resembling wilderness, and what we have is easily degraded. It is here in the East that the energy and money must be focused on setting aside wilderness while we still have some few opportunities remaining. Opportunities being those industrial lands no longer useful for commercial forestry or mining.

It is a lot more politically palatable to work on wilderness protections here, in the East, where the majority of the American population is concentrated. Many more people are excited about it here, and far fewer people feel like their livelihoods will be negatively impacted by public land and wilderness. Because we have so little of it.

Wilderness is important because it is in wilderness that our species evolved and lived happily for 99% of our time on Planet Earth.

Wilderness is our natural state of being, where we humans are most at home, most honestly, naturally ourselves. In modern times, it is where we are least distracted by “narischkeit,” meaningless chatter and buzz. In wilderness we can be honest, true, most mentally healthy, if only for a day or two.

This past Fall I killed the biggest bear I have ever seen in the woods, in a designated Adirondack wilderness area where I was on a solo hunt. It weighed close to 600 pounds, and its hide squared over six feet. Its hide is literally over twice the size of the 260-pound bear’s hide I sleep under in the winter. A true monster. The king of the mountain.

Know what’s neat about this hunting experience? This bear had probably never seen a human before, and he stalked and tried to eat me three times. The third and last time he tried was when I lost patience amidst growing fear that I was going to be eaten alive, and I shot him at thirty yards in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Just skinning him took almost two days, because his enormous carcass rolled under a log on a steep hillside.

It was predator versus predator, animal eating (or wearing) animal, the most basic natural law on Planet Earth.

Though I admit feeling remorse for having ended his kingly reign. I had been after a big buck, and only took my foe when he had willingly forfeited his nine lives over the course of two days with me on the mountain.